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Need for Speed High Stakes Downloads
Empire City HD
Additional Screenshots
Description
- I couldn't find a high-res texture pack for vanilla Empire City, so using some AI-upscaling tools I decided to make my own upscaled (or scratch made) textures.
- The two online tools I use generate their own different look, one giving a cleaner look and the other a kind of gritty look, so I've included both as choices--Clean and Gritty. You can get an idea of how they look in-game via this video I threw together:
https://youtu.be/JVEj0Mfydic
- v1.1: Now includes upscaled transparency textures, some fixed texture seams, and additional upscaled textures + optional skybox upscale and various track texture fixes.
- See Readme for instructions, permissions, and credits.
Changelog
-
Version 1.1
uploaded December 3, 2021
Driven uploaded a new version. The new file is 19.43 MB.
- Upscaled transparent textures
- Some texture seams have been removed
- Additional textures were upscaled/improved
- Optional upscaled sky.qfs
- Optional Tr.frd with various track texture fixes (like blurry statue back texture, incorrect sign side textures, incorrectly flipped textures) -
Initial version
uploaded November 26, 2021
Driven uploaded initial version. The original file is 19.43 MB.
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Visitor Comments
Nice to finally see a hi-res version of Empire City; gotta try it out when I have the chance.
Regarding transparency, it's actually not too hard with the alpha8.dat file: each entry has has 256 bytes that correspond to the alpha value of each palette color, ranging from 00 (transparent) to FF (solid). Normally 8-bit transparent textures don't have a really complex transparency (basically one color is set to be the transparent one), so if you need something with more complex transparency you'll have to convert said texture to a 24 bit bmp, give it a separate alpha channel in another bmp and tweak the index.fsh file to set up properly (you can either refer to FSHTool documentation or unpack a qfs file with 32 bit textures -like a sky.qfs- and check its index.fsh for reference)
Thanks for the comment AJ, I appreciate any help I can get. I had thought it worked something like that, but I didn't know that the alpha.dat 0's and F's were for each color on the palette. Thanks for clearing that up. Now I understand why there's 512 characters in the string (2 for each color).
Is there a way/technique to know which color would correspond to which position in the string, with GIMP or a tool of some sort? So for example, if I wanted to set bright red as the transparency color, how would I determine where to set 00?
As for the retex, it's certainly not perfect (in some textures there's seams, warping, garbling) and not to the caliber of your or MADMAN's work, but I'm hoping it's better than vanilla, and maybe a starting point for someone to improve upon.
"Is there a way/technique to know which color would correspond to which position in the string, with GIMP or a tool of some sort? So for example, if I wanted to set bright red as the transparency color, how would I determine where to set 00?"
You can check the palette in GIMP with the Color Map tab and check the color index of the color you want to make transparent, as shown here: https://i.imgur.com/esPYf6V.png
I'm gonna give you a tip, though: first make sure you have all the 256 colors in your palette (you can add colors with the + button in the Color Map tab), then go to Color > Map > Reorder Color Map, click and drag the color you want to make transparent to the last position and click OK; then export the file to a BMP. Then in the alpha8.dat just make sure all the bits for the bmp are set to FF, save for the last one which should be 00
Also, I recommend setting the transparent color to something close to the rest of the the texture (you can do that by double clicking on the color in the color map tab) so you won't get noticeable colored borders in the transparent areas.
Beautiful enhancement for Empire City. It's amazing what higher resolution textures alone can do for a track.
This is the way I saw Empire City when I first unlocked it in NFS3 on my old Windows 98 desktop, lol.
Excellent work!I like the "Clean" textures, nice work!
Can you confirm that, after downloading and unzipping, you have sky.qfs, Tr.frd, and the tr0.qfs files in the unzipped folder? If so, try putting them all (but only one of the tr0.qfs files) in the Empire folder and testing again. Also make sure you have backups of all your original files, just in case.
I redownloaded it myself and tested it and it's working as it should, so besides this, all I can think of is you should be running Modern Patch by Veg, on one of the more capable drivers.
I got no problems with version 1.1, when I import it with the Mixer. Looks beautiful.
I think you got only one because it's the original version before the site uploaded the update. In any case that one should've worked too, but redownload to get the new update anyway. If all the files are there but everything is still white in-game, all I can think of is some kind of driver problem with Modern Patch, or maybe (this is pure speculation) there's a memory overflow, i.e. maybe the game doesn't have enough memory reserved and can't handle larger textures.
To rule this out, don't try this mod without running on Veg's Modern Patch, and then check your graphics driver's memory allocation. I won't help you through this as your system is different from mine, and I know better than to suggest how other people fiddle with their machines. But try running dgvoodooconf.exe, or poking around in the .ini files of whatever other driver you're using and check memory size. Search the web if you don't how to configure things. And of course make backups if you do change something you're not sure about.
I wish I could do more to help. I hope you can sort it out. :/
Only works with VEG patch, but I had to reduce screensize to 1024x768. Still it's not flawless. But I see the improvements with your high res.textures.
I run nfs4 with nglide 1680x1050, which gives me the best graphics.
But the memory overflow you mentioned had me thinking..., I have trouble with saving settings. Tried Mercury-patch but no result, odd because it helped before.
If you mean the in-game settings or saved data isn't saving--like you change stuff in the game, quit, and the next time you run it, your settings are like they were before you changed them--try setting nfs4.exe to run as administrator under compatibility settings (assuming you're on Windows). I've had that particular problem happen on several old games/programs before, this usually fixes it.
That's what I mean (I have Wndows XP). In setting of nfs4.exe I can choose in compatibiliy modus:
-run with: W95 / 98 /NT or 2000, I allready run as administrator.
With the VEG patch, I don't have the saving problem. Also surprised I have widescreen without streched view, it was one of the reasons I don't use VEG patch.
b.t.w I really appreciate your help
Hmm, I don't know how XP will affect Modern Patch since I think it was meant for newer OS's, so not much I can suggest there as I'm on Win 10.
As for your disk-based install, if running as admin doesn't help, sometimes Windows's User Account protection stuff gets in the way of programs installed in Program Files. If you have NFS4 installed in there, you might want to try installing it in (C:)/Games or something like that instead. Again, being XP, your system is quite different from mine and my area of experience. I'll PM you an additional thing you may want to try.
Finally got around trying out this track and I must say this a pretty good uprezzing of the track. IMO the "clean" road/sidewalk textures coupled with the rest of the "gritty" textures would make a really good single version.
Also, you can get away with leaving textures to 128x128 size max since IIRC the game crunches bigger textures back to that size; that would also save on file size and video memory ;)
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